


Humility and Pride

by talesofsymphoniac



Category: Tales of Graces, Tales of Series
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesofsymphoniac/pseuds/talesofsymphoniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because every ship needs a good old-fashioned sickfic.</p>
<p>Written a while back, publishing for Day Five of Huscal Week: Humility/Pride</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humility and Pride

It wasn’t often that Hubert got sick enough to be rendered bedridden. Even on his worst days, he forced himself out of bed and made sure to get at least _something_ done. But some days, like today, Hubert had to surrender to his body and have a day off.

Which is why Hubert was still in bed at noon, having done nothing but sleep all day. He was woken up by the familiar sound of his communicator: vibrations and small beeping tones. Normally, when the communicator went off, Hubert stopped everything to check what message Pascal had for him, though the messages were usually nearly incomprehensible to him. If anyone asked, he would say her blurbs were irritating and inconvenient, but in actuality he loved getting the messages. He made it a puzzle, to try to figure out how Pascal’s mind worked, how it leapt from thought to thought.

Today, though, the communicator was just too far out of reach. Shifting in bed, Hubert tried to go back to sleep. Just as he was almost there, though, another series of beeps rang through the room. Soon, the messages were arriving more frequently, until finally Hubert summoned a burst of energy, flung himself out of bed, grabbed the communicator, and flopped right back down.

The first two or three messages were fairly normal, by Pascal’s standards. By the fourth, she was impatient for a response. The tenth through thirtieth were just his name with an increasing number of letters: “HUBERT,” “HUUUUUBERT,” “HUUUUUUUUUUUUUBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRTT.” The thirty-first message asked if he was dead. The thirty-second pointed out that he wouldn’t be able to reply if he was dead anyway. The thirty-third one reflected that that wouldn’t be funny if Hubert turned out to actually be dead.

The messages continued in that vein, making Hubert grin every time. When he reached the end, he typed out a message to the effect of “I’m sorry, I’m sick.” It was stiffly formal, but somehow all his replies to Pascal were. Resigning himself to it, he sent out the message. Immediately, the communicator went silent. Slightly disappointed, Hubert went back to sleep, entertaining for a moment the idea that Pascal had decided to let him rest. In reality, she had probably gotten distracted with some machine.

A few hours later, though, Hubert was woken up once again with a knock on his door. He was about to tell off whichever maid it was, when a familiar face peeked in.

“Heya, Hu! You decent?”

As a matter of fact, Hubert _was_ decent- though he didn’t necessarily feel that way, watching his not-so-secret crush hop into his bedroom, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Pascal!? What on earth are you doing here!?” he demanded, trying not to sound as tired as he felt.

“You’re sick, yeah?” Pascal asked nonchalantly, as if this wasn’t the first time they’d seen each other in person in months. “I came to take care of you!”

Hubert closed his eyes, trying not to look as pleased as he was. Pascal had come across a whole country to take care of him. It was hard to believe. Maybe he _should_  have invited her over, as he had contemplated many a time before.

The rest of the day was, perhaps, not as Hubert would have hoped, but certainly what he might have predicted. Pascal, while earnest, was not the greatest at just letting him have some peace and quiet. No, she always had to be moving, constantly offering to make soup and get more blankets and anything else that came to mind.

Eventually, Hubert had to put an end to it. “Pascal, really, I appreciate all this, but I’m fine. I don’t need anything else.”

Pascal just waved this aside. “Come on, I’ve hardly done anything!” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm… What would Fourier do…? She used to take care of me when I was sick, but all I really remember is… OH! She used to give me that fizzy soda stuff so now whenever I drink it I feel like I’m sick!” She looked up at Hubert, pleased at her conclusion. “If you want, I could get you some!”

“I really am fine, Pascal.” At Pascal’s pout, Hubert had to relent. “If you’d really like to do something, though…?” Eagerly, she looked up, and Hubert would have been very red if he wasn’t so sick and tired. “Perhaps, you could just sit here, and… we could just talk?”

At his suggestion, Pascal lit up again and moved onto the chair by his bed, scooting it as close to him as possible. “Sure thing, Hu! What'cha wanna talk about?”

And so they talked for hours. To be more accurate, Pascal talked and Hubert listened. He had missed her voice, her manner of speaking, and her stories. Pascal didn’t seem to mind doing most of the talking, and she didn’t seem to mind when he closed his eyes and nodded off to her ramblings. As he drifted off, he could have sworn he felt fingers stroking through his hair softly, and it might have been enough to knock him back out of sleep if he hadn’t been so comfortable. 

When he woke up again, it was to snoring. He looked over to where Pascal sat, leaning over from the chair onto the bed, head resting on her folded arms. He looked around to find his glasses; they were on the bedside table, and he realized he hadn’t managed to take them off before falling asleep again.

And then Pascal was awake, too, her hair in more disarray than usual, rubbing her eyes groggily. “Morning,” she yawned. “Feeling better?”

Hubert nodded. “Much better, actually. I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

Pascal shrugged as if it was no big deal, but she was barely disguising her pleasure. “Like I said, Fourier used to take care of me when I was sick. I guess I wanted to be on the other side for once, you know?”

“You did an excellent job,” Hubert affirmed, trying not to notice how she flushed slightly at his compliments. Instead, he looked around his room, noticing his desk and remembering the work he hadn’t done yesterday. “I can probably get back to work, now.”

“Oh, yeah.” Pascal quickly deflated at his words, got up, and stretched a bit. “I guess I should get out of your way then, huh?” With a smile, she turned to exit his room.

Without thinking about it, Hubert called her back. “Wait!” She turned to look at him expectantly. Hubert hesitated for only a moment, then said very carefully, “I really don’t need to start on that right now… If you’d like, we could go out somewhere… do something… together?” It was a mark of how much better he had gotten that he was able to blush again, though he himself didn’t much appreciate this fact.

Pascal studied him for a moment, in a rare moment of careful thought. For a moment, Hubert worried she was going to refuse him, but then her thoughtful expression gave way to a wide grin. “It’s a date!” she declared triumphantly, and she spun around and left his room in what seemed to be very high spirits indeed.


End file.
